The Basic Premises
The basic premises underlying the India's decision to create the national CDP 1952 are
presented in Box 9.1 (Ensminger 1968: 3).
Box 9.1 Basic Premises of Community Development Programme
1. The overall development of the rural community can be brought about only with
effective participation of the people, backed by the coordination of technical and
other services necessary for securing the best from such initiative and self-help.
It was to provide the necessary institutional structure and services that early
attention was given to the development of basic democratic village institutions,
especially panchayati raj , cooperatives and village schools.
2. The problems of rural development have to be viewed from a holistic perspective
and the efforts to solve them have to be multifaceted.
One of the major initial moving forces in community development was Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's interest in the Programme. Nehru felt that one of India's
most important undeveloped resources was the people living in its some 6,00,000
villages. Nehru saw in community development the way to involve the village people in
building a new India. He visualised that through their involvement in self-help oriented
programmes, would come the development of the people and people's institutions, both
of which are essential ingredients in moving India towards one of its most clearly stated
objectives, that is, developing India into a viable democracy.